The Oaktree Park neighborhood in San Jose is a scenic residential community with wide appeal to home buyers due to good Almaden schools, close proximity to large parks and is one of only a few areas in Almaden Valley which includes a cabaña and swim team.  Additionally, this area is very convenient as it’s  close to schools, shops and commute routes to downtown San Jose and much of Silicon Valley. It is a fairly intimate neighborhood with 156 homes.

Where is the Oaktree Park neighborhood?

The Oaktree Park subdivision is within the boundaries of Meridian Avenue, Redmond Avenue and Mcabbe Road on three sides and the Jeffrey Fontana Park on the north side.

The census bureau (and perhaps also the city of San Jose) has attributed names to some parts of Almaden and this neighborhood falls into the Crossgates section.  I do not believe that most residents refer to this area that way, though.  Perhaps more likely they’d call it part of the greater Fontana Park neighborhood.

Oaktree Park Neighborhood in San Jose (Almaden Valley area of SJ) - click on image above to go to live Google Map

What schools serve the Oaktree Park neighborhood in San Jose?

The public schools for Oaktree Park are within the San Jose Unified School District:

Los Alamitos Elementary School (API 916 in 2010)
Castillero Middle School (API 806 in 2010)
Pioneer High School (API 823 in 2010)

Los Alamitos Elementary and Holy Spirit Elementary (Catholic) are both just a couple of blocks from Oaktree Park.  Additonally there are 2 preschools really close too:  Precious Preschool and Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Preschool.

For more information and links for schools, school districts, API scores and maps of boundaries lines for schools in the Almaden area of San Jose, please also read:

Schools, API Scores & Maps of School Boundaries in San Jose’s Almaden Valley

What are homes like in Oaktree Park?

Homes in Oaktree Park are single family dwellings – all detached houses (no townhouses or condominiums).  These are primarily ranch style or two story ranch style houses, built in the early 1970s  on lots of about 8000 to 9000 square feet, though a few are more than that.  Interior size runs between about 1600 square feet to about 3000 square feet (if added on). Prices may be in the mid 600s for a smaller home, needing work and a less desirable location (such as on a busy road or immediately adjacent to the high voltage power lines that run through the park) to perhaps a little over a million dollars for a beautifully updated or rebuilt larger home in an ideal location within the neighborhood.

Oaktree Park Neighborhood Home for Sale: 6064 Ostenberg Drive

This week I put a fabulously remodeled and expanded Oaktree Park neighborhood home on the market!  This exquisite house has an awesomely open floorplan with an amazing kitchen – a gourmet’s delight!  Have a look at the details! Open Sat/Sun, April 21-22, 2012 1-4pm. (more…)

How’s the real estate market in the Willow Glen area of San Jose?  Like the greater Silicon Valley region, Willow Glen is comprised of many smaller micro-markets.  It will be different in north Willow Glen, Palm Haven or in a walk-to-town area than it will be in the Dry Creek area or St. Francis Woods neighborhood – let alone differences for school districts, price point, sale type (regular versus short sale or bank owned), zip code and home type!  It’s a patchwork of all these smaller markets, in other words.  What’s happening in one segment might be very different than in another.

Today’s post will be the broad view of Willow Glen and comments may not apply to your specific property – for info on your neighborhood, call or email me!

Disclaimers aside, overall it is a seller’s market in Willow Glen right now, but it’s cooler than other areas with better schools such as Almaden, Cambrian and Cupertino and not everything is selling (and certainly not getting the prices that many sellers want).  The best homes (best condition, pricing, marketing and regular sale) are selling in 1-3 weeks.

Below are the basic numbers, stats and trends from the closed sales of houses in March

and in February:

And next, of Willow Glen condos, where it’s been a cold buyer’s market but recently heated up:

Next, February…

  (more…)

Large Cupertino view home now available!   10387 Amistad Court, Cupertino California

Fabulous 5 bed + den, 4 bath home with lovely valley views from several rooms!  Room to accommodate two or more generations or live in help if so desired.  Lower level includes 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and bonus room or retreat.  Upstairs are the main living areas (living, dining, family, kitchen, nook), master bedroom suite, one more bedroom and a large den or office.  Living room, office, balcony and master all enjoy views.  Good sized, private yard.  Located on quiet cul de sac in lower foothills, a very easy drive.  Best schools, including Monta Vista High School!

Please enjoy a slideshow of this fine home, and click to see more photos as well as some panoramas.

This property is co-listed

10387 Amistad Court, Cupertino California is co-listed with Mary Tan and George Tan of Coldwell Banker in Cupertino, tel # 408 861-8832.

Please stop by our open house this weekend!

This fine home will be open Saturday, 3/31/2012 from 1:30 – 4:30 (hosted by Mary Tan) and Sunday, 4/1/2012 1:30 – 4:30 (hosted by me, Mary Pope-Handy)

More information on  10387 Amistad Court, Cupertino California – a beautiful view home in the prestigious Cupertino foothills!

We're sorry, but we couldn't find MLS # 81211438 in our database. This property may be a new listing or possibly taken off the market. Please check back again.

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What is a real estate bidding war, and why is it back in Silicon Valley?

It is a supply and demand issue.  When there’s not enough supply for the demand, prices get pushed up.  The way that this happens is often through bidding wars.

When a lot of home buyers want the same property and write purchase offers for it, we have multiple offers.  In some markets, multiple offers come in at or under list price (I have seen this in cooler markets). But when the realty market is an overheated sellers market, inventory is too low for the demand, prices rise with those multiple bids.  Then you have bidding wars.

This can happen intentionally, as when home sellers knowingly under price the property to attract multiple buyers, or it can happen unintentionally, when the owner and agent priced the home in line with the comps and the market, but there’s an unexpected avalanche of interest. (The latter just happened to me when I priced a listing to be exactly in line with the market, but got 20 offers and a lot of overbidding.)   Either way, the result is similar.  Buyers up their price and sweeten their terms to win the deal.  Here’s what can happen:

• offers come in over list price
• usually the escrow period is short, to assure the seller it’s a “done deal”
• if owner occupied, often there’s a free rent back of a month or two
• some buyers may offer to pay costs that customarily are paid by the seller, such as an owner’s policy of title insurance, the escrow fee, transfer taxes, and in some cases, even the commission
• most of the time, “cash is king”, and the all cash offers will win the deal (or large down payments) – very hard for 20% down or less to compete against cash offers because they usually include an appraisal contingency (with prices escalating, many homes won’t appraise)
• many offers with no contingencies for inspections, loan, and appraisal – non-contingent offers can be dangerous, most of all if there are no presale disclosures or inspections
• most offers will come with proof of funds
• some will have the disclosures already signed too
• some will include a letter from the Realtor, the buyer or both – buyers may also include a photo

But let’s focus on the bidding part in particular for a moment.  How is all of this a bidding war? Is it just that offers come in over the asking price?  Yes, but sometimes even more is going on too. Let’s look at that now. (more…)

It’s a red hot seller’s market in Silicon Valley right now, meaning that there are more buyers hunting for just the right property than there are listings available.  The end result is multiple offers, bidding wars, pre-emptive offers and rapidly escalating real estate prices in many areas and segments of the market.

When there are lots and lots of bids on a San Jose area home for sale, what do home sellers do?  Most of the time, sellers begin with an “elimination list”.  That is, they start by deciding what they do not want to deal with. The more offers there are, the more critical this becomes since sellers normally don’t love the idea of reading 10 or more stacks of offers.  (Remember, the confused mind says no!) 

Sellers need to simplify their choices, and one of them is by eliminating the worst offers first.  A question for you to consider, if you’re a home buyer in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell or anywhere in Silicon Valley is this: is your lender keeping your offer from getting accepted?  Does your lender make your offer worse to the seller? Sometimes that is exactly the case.

In some cases, certain banks or even credit unions are falling into the “elimination” list for some sellers as their agents may have advised them those lending institutions are slow or difficult.  Most of the time, these are the big banks – the ones that REO or short sale listing agents are demanding that consumers use for a pre-approval for submitting offers: (more…)

If you’ve ever had the experience of selling your car, perhaps you’ve also had someone phone you who’s never even looked at your vehicle and ask you “what’s the lowest price you’ll take?”  Most of the time, auto sellers aren’t too happy with that question: the caller is low balling without even looking at what’s for sale.

That happens in real estate sometimes, too.

Today I got a phone call from a Silicon Valley condo buyer who asked me, without having seen my listing, “will the seller take less?”

Not a great question, for a whole lot of reasons.

First of all, part of a real estate agent’s duty is to protect the seller – and that means not telling consumers the lowest amount that a seller would take, or even if a seller would take less at all (unless, of course, the seller gave express directions to do so, which is very rare indeed).

Secondly, it is a little insulting to call on a property you’ve never viewed and start to verbally bargain down the price, or fish for the lowest possible price. What that does is make the listing agent feel “on guard” from the very beginning. Guess how that impacts your position if there are multiple offers?  You will have made an impression – but not a good one!

Most of the time, a home buyer is better served to not call the listing agent directly at all, but instead to have his or her buyer’s agent place the call to get some information.  There are better ways to figure out if the seller is motivated,  how the pricing looks, whether there will be multiple offers etc. – and Realtors and other real estate licensees are usually pretty practiced at getting the information without damaging the buyer’s position for offers or even potential multiple offers later.

Most of us wouldn’t try to represent ourselves in court, but sometimes don’t appreciate that these same principles apply with real estate; that is, the value of having a fiduciary, an agent, helping us not just when the offer is presented but every step of the way.   Let your agent represent you from earlier stages, and you will likely find that you are presented in a better light than you could do yourself.  Think before you pick up that phone and call the listing agent directly!

Even if your home isn’t a “view property”, things can be done to enhance the attractiveness of windows and their views. Recently I was showing a San Jose home for sale to my buyers.  I was struck by the window in one of the bedrooms.  Have a look – what do you think?  Would you want to look out at this wall every day? It is not a cheerful and welcoming environment.

There are places in San Francisco, and probably other cities around the country, where homes are crammed in so tightly together that windows function only for light and air – not aesthetics.  But in Silicon Valley, that’s not usually the case.  What was the builder of this home thinking, to have a bedroom window look out only onto a wall?

This next photo is of a window which is very close to a fence. But please notice how different the whole look and feel is.

Although a fence is close by, plantings on both sides of it provide some pleasant scenery.  Additionally, the window itself is given two treatments: both shades and curtains.  The color in the drapes helps to improve the scene too.

Admittedly, it’s a bigger challenge if the window’s view is of a wall which is 6 or 8 feet away and more so if it’s a 2nd story window. But what could be done to make this more attractive?

Here are some thoughts:

(1) If possible, plant something that will provide color – ideally a flowering vine or tree.  Some are not too wide and would provide a pleasant vista.

(2) Consider hanging a bird feeder, planter box or yard ornament outside of the window

(3) Stained glass window hangings could cheer up this gloomy space tremendously

(4) Instead of bland drapes, provide something with color

(5) Translucent blinds, in the closed position, would be more attractive but still let light in

Many homes don’t have challenges as big as this example, above, but could be better staged in terms of the window view.  If you want to put your home on the market and get top dollar, walk through your property and take in what a visitor sees from each window.  Ideally, you’d like to have the shades or blinds open and provide something pleasant to see.  Sometimes that’s not possible.  See what can be done to mitigate an unpleasant view while keeping the curtains open.

A few landscaping changes in your own yard (if you have a house or townhouse) can make a huge difference, often for a small cost.  Consider adding color.  Yards that are all green are not bad, but they don’t tend to warm hearts the way that a splash of color can.

Sometimes the 2 way blinds – the ones that can go down from the top or up from the bottom – can solve a lot of visual problems, such as ugly RVs, old cars, or messy yards on the lower part of the window or power lines or tall buildings on the higher end.

Still not sure what to do? Hire a great home stager to help you to make your home attractive, and make sure that you’re considering not just what’s inside of the home, but what visitors see when they look out through your windows and doors too.